Reform’s constitutional quandary

Last week, in one of Keir Starmer’s final acts as Prime Minister, a list of political peerages was published outlining new appointments to the House of Lords. Individuals were nominated by the Leaders of the Labour, Liberal Democrat, and Conservative Parties, along with two nominations for Crossbench Peerages. Among those nominated were the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, former Chief of the General Staff of the British Army, Patrick Sanders, and the former Head of the Civil Service, Chris Wormald.

Notably lacking, however, were any nominations to the House of Lords from the Leader of Reform UK. The party has seven Members of Parliament (excluding Nigel Farage), and consistently polls as the most popular party in Britain. In the May 2026 local elections, Reform won over 1,400 council seats; in the Scottish Parliament election of the same day, they tied Labour for second place with a total of 17 seats; in the Welsh Senedd election, they returned 34 MSs, becoming the official opposition in Cardiff as the second-largest party. Despite this clear electoral success, and the very real possibility of a Reform Government at the next General Election, the party was once again excluded from nominating individuals to the House of Lords during the latest round of appointments.

Nigel Farage was quick to criticise his party’s absence from the list, saying, “The House of Lords appointments are the uniparty writ large,” taking a similar line of that which he has been using in his campaign for reelection at the upcoming Clacton by-election. “Once again, there is nothing for Reform and we get an even more unrepresentative upper house,” he said.

While some critics may find it easy to dismiss this criticism as sour grapes from a man clearly at his wit’s end with the establishment, it is difficult to regard the clear lack of representation that the party has received as being anything but unjust. How, out of a total of 772 sitting members of the House of Lords, does one of the most consequential political parties in the contemporary United Kingdom not have a single seat? 

Such an absence from the Upper House poses an interesting constitutional question in the event of a Reform Government. The Government of the United Kingdom is bicameral; the House of Lords is an integral part of that, existing as a necessary revising chamber which has the ability to reject or otherwise block legislation. If not a single member of that chamber belongs to the party of Government, could any controversial legislation actually be passed?

Well, yes — to an extent. A large part of Reform’s policy for Government consists of a drastic reconstitution of public spending. Money Bills must receive Royal Assent no later than a month after being introduced in the House of Lords, irrespective of whether or not the Lords has actually passed them. The Upper House is also unable to amend such Bills. 

The Salisbury Convention ensures that the Lords does not try to vote down Government Bills that were mentioned in the governing party’s manifesto, though a cynic may argue that there is nothing stopping the Lords from abandoning their duty to uphold this non-binding convention. The Lords can delay other legislation, however the Parliament Acts 1911 & 1949 exist to limit the length of time that legislation can be delayed to only one year. Still, these acts have only been invoked seven times since their creation; by contrast, there were 145 Government defeats in the House of Lords in the 2024-26 session of Parliament alone. 

There is a precedent for mass national change to be successfully delivered without significant representation in the House of Lords. Clement Attlee, upon defeating Winston Churchill in the 1945 General Election, entered Government as Prime Minister with his Labour Party having only 16 Peers in the House of Lords. Despite this challenge, Attlee delivered the creation of the National Health Service and the welfare state, along with the mass nationalisation of industries, assisted in his way by the creation of 82 hereditary peerages during his tenure as Prime Minister, though still vastly outnumbered in the Upper House.

For Farage, a similar story could be possible. While there is a high probability that the House of Lords pulls every constitutional lever to frustrate his many likely controversial bills, in theory there is little that could stand in the way of a Reform majority Government passing as many wide-ranging pieces of legislation as it would like. 

Additionally, though it would spell a constitutional crisis likely fatal to the Lords itself, there is little stopping Farage from showing up on day one of his premiership with an extensive list of hundreds of nominations to the peerage, flooding the Lords with his supporters in order to ensure his plan for Government comes to fruition. More realistically, the threat to do just this could catalyse the passing of policies that Farage wants; it was precisely due to the threat by Herbert Asquith as Prime Minister to create hundreds of Liberal Peers that the Parliament Act 1911 was passed by the Lords. Similarly, the Great Reform Act of 1832, which expanded the electoral franchise, was passed following threats to King WIlliam IV by the Prime Minister, Earl Grey, that 50 or more new Liberal Peers would have to be created to overcome the majority in the Upper House that were opposed to reform.

Farage’s comments … imply that his party is still taking seriously the potential for a severe restructuring of the House of Lords

A constitutional crisis threatening the existence of the House of Lords may not be too far removed from what Farage might actually be aiming for, however. In the party’s 2024 election manifesto, Our Contract with You, Reform UK outlined that within their first 100 days in Government they would “[r]eplace the crony-filled House of Lords with a much smaller, more democratic second chamber”, along with the “[i]mmediate end of political appointees” to the Upper House. 

Farage’s comments following the recent cohort of political peerages imply that his party is still taking seriously the potential for a severe restructuring of the House of Lords. While other parties have made clear their desire for similar reforms, with the Labour Party taking meaningful first steps towards this through Tony Blair’s House of Lords Act 1999 and the recent House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Act 2026, these establishment parties still have a real stake in the unelected Upper House, making any such total reform or abolition unlikely under them. For Reform UK, however, under a leader vocally frustrated with his party’s lack of representation in the Lords, no such stake exists. 

Nothing is certain in politics, and while a Reform UK Government is still the most likely result at the next General Election, what follows that is a complete unknown. One thing that does appear somewhat likely, however, for better or for worse, is that the House of Lords as we know it is not long for this world.